1.2.2-Kingedmundsroyalmurder
Brick!club day 15: of ladies and more ladies First things first: yes, I skipped yesterday. That is the chapter that made me stop reading last time because it’s basically all people being mean to Jean Valjean and I have trouble with that kind of thing. (Yes, yes, I realize what kind of book I’m reading. I’m hoping that doing this via brick!club will help me push through the hard bits.) But we’re back today with a chapter all about the ladies! And it is delightful. And I am wanting that fic more and more, especially since we get tiny glimpses into Mlle. Baptistine’s past and it’s lovely. But we start with the Bishop working, and Hugo very dutifully cites his sources. I’m curious as to whether the Bishop ever finishes his book or if that ‘tragically left unfinished’ means that he never gets around to it. And then we get to Mme. Magloire and Mlle. Baptistine and we get to learn more about them at last! Admittedly a lot of what we learn is not particularly surprising, though I’m curious about Mlle. Baptistine’s dress. It seems like it was fairly expensive, and her desire for the couch speaks of a knowledge of luxury. M. Bienvenu, back when he was Myreil, was aristocracy, so clearly Baptistine was also accustomed to such things. On the other hand, the only person in the house to wear jewelry is Mme. Magloire, who is more stubborn than Baptistine about living a life of abject poverty. We’ve already seen that Mme. Magloire is much more likely to call the Bishop on things than Mlle. Baptistine, though this chapter does make the distinction between talking to and talking back. (“Tant que monseigneur se taisait, elle lui parlait résolument avec un mélange de respect et de liberté; mais dès que monseigneur parlait, on a vu cela, elle obéissait passivement comme mademoiselle.” (As long as monseigneur was quiet she spoke to him firmly with a mix of respect and liberty; but the moment monseigneur spoke, as we have seen, she obeyed passively like mademoiselle.)) We do know that the only reason she switches to passive obedience is that Baptistine told her to, though. (Help, I am friend!shipping these two so hard all of a sudden.) I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with the way the narrative describes Baptistine. The tone is all, “she’s ugly but she has a good heart so it makes up for it.” Like, can her good heart not stand on its own? Do we have to know that it makes up for being less than beautiful? We have a bit of Roald Dahl philosophy going here in the “those who are good cannot help but become beautiful as the goodness radiates from their core” stuff, which is appreciated more because of Roald Dahl than the actual sentiment. We then get Mme. Magloire’s diatribe on the importance of locking the door just this once, complete with italics for emphasis. I can just feel her frustration here as she’s trying to convince him and he’s not even listening to her. Mlle. Baptistine, of course, takes her brother’s side in this, though not without reminding Mme. Magloire not to put words in her mouth. And then, naturally, there is a knock on the door. No prizes for guessing who’s outside. Mme. Magloire is the real saint in this house, honestly. Putting up with them can’t be particularly easy when you do actually have to deal with earthly concerns once in a while. If she doesn’t occasionally long for a rather large glass of gin I will be shocked. (Or whatever the equivalent would be for people of their time and place.)